by Mallory Kane
Rider watched in incredulous horror as the yellow cat climbed down the fire escape and jumped straight into Kristen's arms. It tucked its head under her chin and purred so loudly Rider could hear it from his vantage point several—quite a few—feet away.
Kristen murmured to the cat and scratched its neck, her face glowing like a XXXadonna’s.
"Doc. Come on." He kept his distance as they walked back toward the cab.
Kristen had just gotten into the back seat with the cat when the tank stepped out of the shadows of another alley several yards away, and fired at them.
Rider ducked behind the car as a green ribbon of light angled through the front windshield, burning a hole in the cab driver's head.
Kristen screamed and the cat yowled.
"Stay down, Doc," Rider shouted.
The tank fired again, low, the blast bursting the right front tire.
"Doc!" he yelled. "When I'm away from the car, push the driver out and drive like hell."
He didn't listen for her answer, just dove from behind the car toward a garbage bin, praying the tank would follow him rather than going for the car. Rider cringed at the heat of a blast too close to the back. As he'd feared, their pursuer aimed one more blast at him then turned back to the car.
Had Kristen heard him? The interior of the cab was dark. But he hadn't heard the door open, and he didn't see the driver's body on the street.
"Come on, Doc. Get out of here," he muttered, praying to whatever might be up there to pray to that she'd do what he said.
He heard a crackle of heat, like blaster fire on metal. Damn! The cars here were made of metal, not plastic. One or two regular blasts wouldn't penetrate metal! She was safe, if she stayed down. Safe at least until he reached the car. His hands shook with relief and he cursed his reaction.
Where was the detachment? Where was the cold resolve? All he could find was a gut-wrenching fear that he'd let her down. A fear that his uncontrollable emotions would keep him from acting swiftly and logically to save her. Get a grip, he told himself. The best thing he could do for her was forget how important she was to him and concentrate on how important she was to the future.
Drive, Doc! Get out of here!
As the tank walked resolutely toward the car, Rider crept behind him. He rushed him, counting on surprise and the momentum of his body to knock him down, but not entirely hopeful. He remembered fighting the guy once or twice in training. He never remembered winning.
"Oof!" Surprise was on his side though, and when he rammed him in the small of his back, the big tank crumpled and the blaster fell from his hand. Rider intertwined his fingers and slammed his knotted fists into the bigger man’s neck, the reverberations echoing all the way up his arms. He did it again and again, trying to smash his spinal cord, until the tank shrugged him off like a nuisance fly. The man must have steel for nerves, he must not know what pain was. And he was half again Rider’s size. All Rider had going for him was surprise, and the surprise was over.
Maybe he had one other thing going for him. His agility. The tank was bulky with muscle. Rider, though sore and exhausted, with bruised ribs and a shoulder that didn't want to work just right, just might be more agile and quick.
It was one thing he'd learned in basic. The only way to keep from being hurt badly by the bigger guys or the clumsy robots was to keep moving until the round was over. As Rider dove for the dropped blaster, a twinge of fatalistic humor curled his lips. Who'd ring the bell for this round to end? He grabbed the blaster a split second before the tank’s kick landed right in the middle of his rib cage. Indescribable agony seared through his diaphragm. If his ribs weren’t broken before, they crunched ominously now.
His breath whooshed out, and he couldn't get it back. He gasped, trying to steal enough breath not to pass out. Had he punctured a lung?
With an effort born of panic, he rolled underneath the car and fired the blaster at the foot that had kicked him. He smelled burning flesh and saw a satisfyingly large hole erupt in leather and flesh.
The tank hesitated, just for an instant, but that was enough time for Rider to aim a blast at his other foot. That stopped him for a little longer.
Rider scooted further away, backing toward the other side of the car. His ribs hurt so badly he could barely breathe, but he tamped down the pain, covering it with a fierce determination. Nothing short of death would make him stop. He would not allow Kristen to die! She needed him, and he would not fail her.
As he slid out from under the car, the dead cab driver tumbled out on top of him.
"Good, Doc. Now get out of here!" he gasped as he
kicked the dead man out of his way and crouched behind the car, breathing shallowly to minimize the searing pain in his ribs.
The tank reached for the passenger door and Rider heard the rip of metal as he tore the handle off and threw it aside, then slammed his fist through the passenger window.
"Doc! Drive!"
"Get in,” she cried.
"No! Drive! I'll be fine. Go!" He leveled the blaster at the tank’s eyes and watched as the green ribbon of heat missed its target and plowed a part through the man’s hair. A sizzling sound and a nauseating smell gave Rider a bit of hope as the car behind which he crouched took off.
"All right Doc," he whispered, "I knew you were lying about not being able to drive." His limbs were weak with relief that she'd finally listened to him. He ignored the faint regret that he might never see her again. At least she'd gotten her damned cat.
Unbelievably, the tank was still upright. He lumbered toward Rider. Rider backed away, aiming a blast at the other eye. He pressed the activator button, but nothing happened.
His mouth went dry. Out of energy.
The tank kept coming. Faintly, in the back of his mind, Rider heard something familiar, but it didn't quite register as he frantically considered his options.
He crouched on the balls of his feet, ready to move quickly, hoping with all of his being that the man was more injured than he appeared. He darted sideways.
Suddenly, the noise that had tickled at the edge of his brain coalesced into an identifiable sound—a car engine.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rider whirled just in time to see the cab bearing down on them. He dove onto the sidewalk and rolled, gasping for breath over the crunching pain of his ribs. He looked up just in time to see the cab slam into the tank. The big man crumpled, no match for the bulk and force of the moving car. Rider lay on the sidewalk and watched in amazement.
Kristen backed the car up at least a hundred feet then ran over the body again. She backed away, turned the car around with a scream of wheels, and shouted to Rider through the open driver's window.
"Come on! Let's go!"
Rider glanced back at the body of the tank that’d been sent to kill them and wondered how soon they’d send another.
He limped over to the car holding his side, and flung himself into the back, almost passing out when his body bounced on the seat.
Kristen didn't speak, just took off. Rider lay as still as possible, breathing in short, unsatisfying puffs, wanting to take a deep breath but unwilling to find out just how badly his ribs were messed up. He didn't move until the car stopped.
"Come on, we’re here," his angel doctor said impatiently, holding the door open. He peered at her through narrowed eyes.
She was holding the damned cat in one arm and had her other hand on the car door. Her face was a mixture of fear, pity, and irritation. He searched her gaze but he couldn't read anything more. Certainly not the love and trust he'd hoped he would find. He blinked, trying to believe that the stinging in his eyes was from the pain in his ribs, not the ache in his heart. Carefully, wearily, he pulled himself out of the car.
Kristen reached for him, but he shrugged off her grip. "Keep that damned cat away from me," he whispered, shuddering and wincing at the grinding in his midsection. She winced, too, he didn't miss that. He moved resolutely away from her. He didn't want her pity. Di
dn't want her to feel his pain. He was hurting, confused, and closer to breaking down than he'd ever been in his life. All he wanted was to be left alone.
He climbed onto the boat by himself and took his position against the mast.
"Come below," she said, "and I'll clean you up and wrap your ribs." She put her hand on his arm. He didn't even have the strength to shrug it off this time, so he let it stay there, but he bent every last bit of will he had left to shielding his feelings from her. He had to. He didn't have the strength to deal with her empathy, her pity, her need right now. It was all he could do to keep from crying. He didn't acknowledge her at all, and after a few seconds she took her hand away and went below.
Rider had never felt so totally alone in his life. It was a horrible feeling, the worst thing he'd ever experienced. The worst in what seemed now to be a lifetime of worsts. He sat, warily relaxed, breathing carefully. He should feel great, triumphant. He and Kristen had won. His angel-doctor had acted brilliantly. He should be proud of both of them.
And he should be planning their escape. But he was so damned tired, and so confused. Hot tears squeezed out from beneath his closed eyelids. What had happened to him? He was a trained killer, for God's sake! All emotion should have been sucked out of him in the TAINCC. He longed for that distance, that wall of protection that the conditioning had given him. Or had it?
He'd never been fully conditioned, he realized. The whole time, even after they'd successfully wiped his memory of his wife's real identity, he'd rebelled against them. And it had worked. He'd kept his humanity—well, most of it—kept his resolve to wreak vengeance through all the torture, all the brainwashing. And he'd kept his emotions.
Clenching his fists, Rider took a deep breath and it hitched like a sob. He didn't want them. He didn't want the feelings. Feelings were too hard. Physical pain was nothing compared to the pain of loving and losing someone who meant more than his own life.
Damn Kristen Skipworth! Damn her for making him care again. Damn her for making him love her. Loving her took too much out of him. Loving her was too dangerous for her. She needed a protector, not a lover. Maybe Darwin could find her a protector who could keep his head. Someone who wouldn't be paralyzed by fear every time he thought of losing her.
His eyes spilled over with tears and he cursed himself. Cursed her. Cursed the stupid cat.
The cat. He shuddered. Still, the creature had helped trigger the return of his memories. Rider supposed he should be grateful to it for helping unlock the secrets buried in his unconscious mind. Because if he'd never remembered, he might have succeeded in killing Kristen. If he'd never broken the conditioning, he'd be just another tank lost in time. Maybe he'd even be a hero back in the future. The tank who’d successfully wiped out the Deviants. That was a whole dilemma. Darwin certainly had a gift for understatement. Complicated hardly covered it. She said she was from much further in the future than he, which seemed to indicate that the skipworths weren’t wiped out, even then.
And Darwin had said more. Lots more. Rider had hoped he and Kristen could hide in the corridors of time. Have a life together. But Darwin had said Kristen couldn't go. He blotted his damp eyes on the sleeve of the scrub shirt. Tanks didn't cry. Humans cried. Vulnerable, expendable humans.
He felt a warm weight on his lap. Drowsily, he glanced down and caught his breath when he saw what it was. The damned cat. His first instinct was to spring up, wring the disgusting animal's neck and throw it as far as he could. But he didn't move. It was as if he was paralyzed, pinned down by the cat's warm weight.
Sam raised his big yellow head and stared at Rider with round, wide eyes, making a peculiar chirruping sound. His hand trembling, Rider touched the cat's ear. Sam flicked it as if Rider's touch tickled, and Rider's breath caught in a sob. Kristen had managed to save the cat, and Rider had managed to save Kristen, so far. Now what?
"Now what, Sam?" he whispered, running his finger along the cat's chin. When he did, Sam lifted his head and began purring loudly. Rider's fingers still shook, but he scratched Sam's chin and watched the cat's eyes close and his nostrils dilate in ecstasy.
Kristen had save the cat, because she couldn't save her brother. She was his angel doctor, whose stubbornness and courage had torn down the wall of pain and hatred he'd lived behind, whose empathy had made him human. Too damned human to save her. She needed someone who could protect her—someone who wasn't in love with her. She'd be better off without him. Hell, he couldn't even keep from crying. Rider leaned his head back against the mast and let the tears fall unchecked.
#
Kristen lay in the forward berth, her brain in turmoil. She couldn’t rest. Rider had been so remote. No, not just remote. Hostile. As if he were furious at her. She'd been terrified when the cab driver had been killed. In all her years as a physician, she'd never seen anyone murdered before her eyes. And with the blaster there wasn't even any blood, which somehow made it even more shocking. She was a doctor. Blood she could handle.
But this thing—this ribbon of bright green heat that could burn through flesh, was ghastly. She shivered, remembering how close it had come to her, how close it had come to Rider. She had been so afraid for him. She'd wanted to jump out of the car and help him, but thank God she'd had enough sense to know that the car was the best weapon they had. It was a bit horrifying, the satisfaction she'd experienced when she'd rammed into that inhuman monster with the car. The crunch of metal against flesh had thrilled her.
A whisper of pain and grief rippled through her from Rider, bringing her thoughts back to the present. She glanced upward involuntarily. She'd been gleaning those whispers from him all afternoon. It dismayed her to know he'd almost figured out how to shield his feelings from her. He was apparently making a huge effort to do so. He was getting better at it too. These tiny waves were all she'd gotten in the past several hours.
At first she'd thought he was asleep, but when Sam had jumped down off her berth and scrambled up the ladder to the deck, she'd followed the yellow cat, to make sure he didn't jump off the boat. When she'd come up on deck, she'd seen a sight that had at once thrilled her and broken her heart. Rider sat, his back against the mast, holding Sam on his lap. Holding her cat. Rider, who was terrified by cats, because they reminded him of the day his wife died, was holding Sam on his lap and stroking him. She'd retreated into the cabin where she lay now, Rider's presence like a rain cloud above her, hurt by his distance, his careful guarding of his emotions.
This was what it would be like when he left. Worse, much worse than after Skipper died, because although she and Skipper had been closer than siblings, they were brother and sister. And although, before the last few days, Kristen wouldn't have agreed with anyone who said there was a connection closer than family,
she now knew there was.
The void left by Skipper in her life would never be completely healed, but Rider's presence had filled an empty place within her she'd never even known was there. Now, when he held himself apart from her, the void was deeper, wider, a wound which would gape in her life forever.
She shifted restlessly. The cabin was hot with the hatch closed, but she'd been reluctant to open it. She didn’t want to interrupt Rider. She didn't want to do anything that might push him closer to the decision she was sure he would make. He would go back. He’d have to. The thought that he might be able to go back there and save his wife obsessed Kristen. She knew it must be obsessing him.
With a sorrow too deep for tears, Kristen lay on the bunk, staring at the sky through the Plexiglas hatch, and worked on getting used to Rider being gone. She didn't even dare think about what would happen to her without him. She shuddered, thinking about the monster that had come after them. The people who were intent on killing her wouldn't stop. They would send more.
They probably had millions of them and could drop them back into the past like summer rain on asphalt, so that no matter where she went, one would be there, or two or a dozen. And it would only be a matter of time.
>
She would have to live her life suspicious of everyone. She would never be able to trust anyone. Even on the open sea, she'd be vulnerable. She had thought she was alone when Skipper died. Now she would be totally alone. Totally.
She closed her eyes against the tears that kept threatening. Tears would accomplish nothing, she told herself for the thousandth time. In fact, breaking down could probably get her killed. She had no time for tears anymore. She had to learn a harder lesson now. She had to learn to steel herself, not only against the emotions of others, but against her own traitorous heart. She couldn't let feelings get in the way, not if she was going to survive.
She heard a noise above her. When she opened her eyes, she saw Rider opening the hatch. He slipped through and she scooted out of the way so he wouldn't step on her. He lowered himself gingerly to the berth, leaving the hatch open, groaning and holding his ribs as he relaxed beside her.
"Damn, it's hot down here, Doc. You taking a steam bath?"
Kristen eyed him suspiciously. He sounded almost cheerful. She touched his arm and when she did, his mouth turned up in the quirky, heartbreaking smile that always thrilled her. She bathed in the glow from that smile, knowing the time was near when she would never see it again.
Through her fingers on his arm she could sense the deep sadness that had overlaid him from the beginning, but beneath it was a center, a calmness that hadn't been there before. And that calmness ripped her heart into shreds, because she knew what it signified. He'd made his decision.
Her shredded heart lurched so painfully she had to cover the place with her hand. Her eyes filled with tears in spite of herself. She blinked furiously. When she could see again, she looked at him. He was still staring at her with that smile on his face, and when her gaze met his, the smile faded into a frown.
"Why so sad, Doc? We're safe, at least for the moment." He was reclining on the bed leaning on one arm. He'd taken the scrub shirt off, and Kristen saw the scars of his battles.
